Master and Servant (Waterman), Page 2

CHAPTER TWO

  The terrace connected with the mansion by way of three vertical windows that began at the floor and ended nine feet higher in fanlights. Carr and Jesse had barely stepped through the middle window – which served as a doorway – when Carr's father appeared, apparently on his way to the terrace. He paused when he saw Jesse and offered Carr an enquiring look.

  "Father," said Carr carefully, "this is Master Jesse of Tenarus. He has just arrived in the Dozen Landsteads for the first time, so I invited him home for supper."

  "I see." Carr's father kept his voice carefully neutral. He was a middle-aged man with well-oiled hair and a perpetual crease of worry on his brow. As always, he was dressed in his lounge suit; he disdained to wear anything fancier. In his hand was his pen; when at home, he was forever buried in paperwork for his businesses and his House. What little time was left over, he mainly spent revising his book. Transferring the pen to his left hand in preparation for extending his right arm, he said, "Welcome to Cliffsdale Mansion, Master Jesse."

  Jesse looked at Carr. "I thought you called this place His Master's Kindness?"

  Out of the corner of his eye, Carr saw his father wince. Carr replied, "That's the name of our House, and it has traditionally been the name of the House's mansion as well. But my father has renamed the mansion."

  "Good," said Jesse firmly. "That other name gave me the creeps." He thrust out his arm at Carr's father. "I'm Comrade Jesse, and I hope you're not about to tell me that my wrist is the wrong color to greet you."

  As might be expected, Carr's father looked at first startled and then delighted. "On the contrary," he replied, shaking Jesse's arm vigorously. "You're entirely welcome here. —Have you told him?" He looked at his son.

  Carr shook his head. "I figured that you could explain."

  Still smiling, Carr's father released Jesse's arm as he said, "You will find yourself at home here, Comrade Jesse. This is an Egalitarian House – the only such House in the Dozen Landsteads. All of us in this household are equals to one another . . . or as equal as we can be in a nation with pernicious laws that forbid three-quarters the population their freedom."

  "Sort of a difficult trick to keep an Egalitarian household in such a nation, I'd imagine," Jesse said cheerfully as he glanced up at the cut-glass chandelier hanging from a gilded plaster ceiling that was molded to look like a beach filled with starfish.

  Carr's father sighed. "Alas, yes. It's impossible to run a mansion of this size without brute labor. My wife and son and I do our best to take our share of the tasks, but practical factors – I run two businesses, and Carr is away at school during much of the year – mean that the servants must bear the brunt of the work. We try, though, to make the servants understand that this is their home as much as ours. We are merely the mansion's caretakers; the servants are the true owners of this place."

  "Yeah?" Jesse had a broad smile on his face that, if Carr had not known better, he would have taken to be genuine. "Sounds like a fun place to live. Lots of servants' parties here, right?"

  "Ah . . . no." Carr's father seemed disconcerted. "We live a quiet life here. —That's the telephone," he added, turning in the direction of the ringing. "You'll excuse me, I hope. I answer my own 'phone, rather than have servants do that task." He hurried from the room, in the direction of the mansion's front door; presently, he could be heard saying, "No, no, Variel, I'll answer it myself."

  "So no servants' parties?" Jesse's smile had dropped off like a mask.

  "No parties for masters and mastresses either," replied Carr quietly. "We don't receive many visitors here."

  "Sort of a waste of space, then." Jesse pointed his thumb. There was no furniture in the room, other than chairs lining the walls. Upon the walls, arched panels depicted scenes from Remigeus's life. The final panel, near the door through which Carr's father had departed, depicted Remigeus's death, in gruesome detail. Carr's father, complaining about the flaking of the oil-paint, planned to paint the room a pleasant shade of green, to match the name of the mansion's main building, Rebirth.

  Carr was saved having to answer by the entrance of a man his father's age, also dressed in a lounge suit. The mansion's occasional visitors often mistook him for a master, a source of constant embarrassment for the visitors and, presumably, for the man, though he did not voice his thoughts on such matters. The choice of uniform was not his own.

  "Variel," said Carr, "this is Comrade Jesse, who will be staying to supper. Will you take his bag up to my room, please?" He quickly snatched the bag out of Jesse's hands before Jesse should insist on carrying up the bag himself.

  Variel gave the slightest flicker of a glance in the direction of the library. Carr could guess that he was wondering whether the master of the House was still occupied on the phone. Evidently deciding to take the safest course, Variel replied, "Certainly, comrade. Would you like me to inform your mother of the arrival of your guest? She is currently in the summer kitchen, making supper."

  Carr just managed to suppress a groan. "Yes, Variel; thank you. —Would you like a tour of the mansion before supper?" he asked Jesse as Variel departed with the bag.

  Jesse shrugged. "Sure. Who's the guy in the suit? One of the masters here?"

  "Ah, no . . ." Carr was caught as off-guard as his father had been. Then he saw Jesse's grin and added more firmly, "No. As my father said, the servants do the brunt of the work here. The only masters living in the mansion are me and my father."

  "And your mother's in the kitchen, right?" Jesse joined Carr as he walked toward the door to the rest of the mansion. "Where'd she learn to cook, if she was raised a mistress? I mean, mastress."

  Carr just managed to keep from making the frank reply, "She didn't." Instead he said, "The servants offer her advice sometimes. —The kitchen is down that way." Carr pointed to the right. They had reached the foyer, with its ceiling that was the height of three men. "The formal dining room is next to the salon, which we just walked through. Then comes the family dining room – that's in the hyphen."

  "The hyphen?" Jesse shaded his eyes, as though he were a sailor peering toward a distant landscape.

  "The passageway," Carr explained. "It's nicknamed the hyphen because it looks like a numeral. —Hyphen, cross, circle," he explained as Jesse looked at him blankly. "Those are the three numerals in the Dozen Landsteads. We follow the ternary system here."

  "Oh, right, I read about that." Jesse dismissed the matter with a gesture that suggested he considered the Dozen Landsteads' ternary system to be unimportant. Many foreigners made that mistake. "And the kitchen is beyond that?"

  "Yes, in a separate building, but in the cold months of the year, the servants will use the winter kitchen in the north wing – the Death Wing we call it."

  Jesse raised his eyebrows. "Cheery name."

  "The south wing is the Transformation Wing," Carr explained patiently. "We're standing in Rebirth."

  Jesse continued to look blank.

  Sighing, Carr said, "Chapter Two in A Concise History of the Dozen Landsteads. The book was in your bag."

  "Oh, religious stuff. Right." Jesse dismissed this with another gesture. "So the Death Wing is the territory for food, you're saying?"

  "On this level. Mind you," said Carr as he turned in the direction of the Transformation Wing, "all of the main floor will be renovated some day soon. My father plans to turn most of the rooms into apartments for the servants."

  "What's down in the south wing?" was Jesse's only reply as they made their way into the hyphen that led to the Transformation Wing.

  "The chapel. We just passed the sitting room, and my father's library is here."

  Carr pointed to the small room off the corridor in the south hyphen; the door was closed, but he could hear his father's voice saying, "No. Under no circumstances. This is the third time in a sun-circuit that he has changed masters; he is obviously flitting from job to job in an idle manner. Take his certificate from him—"

  "These lead up to the second level." Carr p
ointed at the flight of stairs, hoping that Jesse was missing the import of the phone conversation.

  "Nice." Jesse ran his finger along the mahogany railing as he peered up at the statue upon the newel post at the bottom of the railing. One of Carr's ancestors, who had built this mansion at the beginning of the nineteenth tri-century, had possessed a taste for foreign art; the statue was of Mercy, a Vovimian goddess. Even Carr's uncle, who had strong opinions against foreign contamination, had not been able to bear the idea of taking down the image of the beautiful, winsome maiden.

  Carr's father was just waiting for the right price before he sold the statue. His motive for the sale was not piety; he simply wanted more money for his slowly growing fund for the servants.

  Carr explained this as they made their way up the broad, curving stairway, past windows with fanlights the shape of clamshells. At the landing, Jesse gave a quick glance around, as though expecting to be jumped the moment he walked into any of the large bedrooms. "Masters' quarters, right?"

  "For the most part," replied Carr, stepping into the hallway. "That room belongs to my parents, and the smaller one next to it is Variel's."

  "What are these?" Jesse walked over to peer into the two tiny rooms over the foyer. One of them had a miniature fireplace.

  "They belong to Sally and Bat," Carr replied. "Sally you've already met; Bat is our new footman. They're both young – Bat just turned journeyman last summer, and Sally is a sun-circuit younger than him. So my father thought it would be best to house them here, where Variel could keep a close eye on them."

  "Huh." Jesse took another look at the tiny bedroom with the fireplace, into which nothing more than a bed and a washstand could be crammed. "Bat gets the fireplace, I see. It's a man's world here, right?" He laughed at Carr's blank look. "Okay, what's at the end of the corridor here?"

  "My study. It used to be the nursery, when I was growing up. And here's my bedroom." He pointed to the room in the northeast corner. The door was ajar; Jesse's bag sat on the dresser.

  "Nice view," commented Jesse as he entered the room and hung his head out the open window in order to stare at the Bay. "So this is where I'll be staying?" He glanced through the doorway near the window, his head brushing against the jackets there.

  Carr said patiently, "Jesse, that's my dressing room."

  "So? It's not much smaller than the rooms you gave to Sally and Bat. Or did you expect me to sleep in the servants' quarters?"

  Carr hesitated. He had not expected Jesse to sleep anywhere; he had merely intended to invite him to supper. But Jesse – who had now disappeared entirely into the jungle of hanging clothes – seemed to be interpreting Carr's invitation more broadly.

  Carr wondered what his father would say if he learned that Jesse had invited himself to stay. Stalling for time, Carr said, "The dressing room connects only with my bedroom. You'd have to walk through here every time you left your room."

  "So? That could have its advantages."

  "What do you mean, it could—?"

  He stopped. He was not usually this slow. Indeed, the joking speculations among his classmates about what service he required of his fags had reached such a pitch that he had inwardly vowed never to serve as a fag-master again.

  But in this case, the first warning he had of the meaning of Jesse's remark came when Jesse appeared at the door of the dressing room, smirking. He was no longer wearing his cloak.

  He was no longer wearing his clothes.

  Carr very carefully stepped over to the door to the corridor. He glanced out, ascertained that none of the servants were in the hallway, and shut the door before saying in a low voice, "Thank you. That's very kind of you to offer. But I'm afraid . . ." He hesitated, wondering how to word his rejection.

  "I'm not your type?" Fortunately, Jesse had rid himself of his smirk.

  This seemed to be the sort of situation where it was kinder to be frank. "No. So put your clothes back on, please. Irene cleans the bedrooms in the afternoons."

  Jesse reached out toward his discarded tunic, in a somewhat automatic manner. Then he paused, and a look of puzzlement came onto his face.

  "What is it?" Carr asked.

  Jesse shook his head slowly. "Nothing. I just hadn't planned to put my clothes back on that quickly."

  "No?" Carr kept his voice steady. "I suppose that you wanted to spare Irene any embarrassment."

  Jesse's only response was a snort as he re-clothed himself. Carr turned his attention toward the window. The wind off the Bay was soft. On the horizon, he could see the thin dark line that represented the Third Landstead. Far-off Hoopers Island was hidden by the cradling right-hand arm of the House's cove, where a lamphouse stood. The left-hand arm of the cove consisted of layered cliffside, topped by trees.

  Carruthers Cliffs Cove was not a very good cove. Though its steep cliffs provided protection against the annual northwest blow, the cove was too shallow to shield the boats against winds coming from most other directions. Whenever a great storm threatened from the east, Rowlett had to move their fleet to the harbor at the capital.

  Carr's father was not to blame for this inconvenience. The man who had chosen this cove for the mansion of the House of His Master's Kindness had not had knowledge of the ways of the water, except in the sense that he had sailed here from further down the Bay – from the southern tip of the First Landstead.

  Seeking his own land and his own power, in the years when all lesser masters were mere servants to the High Master of the First Landstead, that man had founded his House on the island where Jesse's steamship had docked. But on the piece of land where he had originally landed, at what would come to be known as Carruthers Cliffs Cove, Carr's ancestor had arranged for the founding of a second House, for a different but equally important purpose. And so Carr's family reigned over the second oldest House in the Second Landstead, though the ancient mansion had been replaced by later buildings.

  "Whatcha thinking?" Moving forward, Jesse joined him at the window.

  "I was wondering who I was in my past lives," Carr replied, turning his gaze toward a fleet of bugeyes that was sailing toward the horizon. "I must have been ranked as a servant in some of my lives, but I don't remember what that was like. I wish I did."

  "Why?" asked Jesse bluntly.

  Carr shook his head wordlessly, turning away from the window. Death, transformation, rebirth: the endless cycle of time, spiralling upwards. And yet he felt trapped, as though he were lingering in the serene yet poisonous world of afterdeath.

  "Let's go downstairs," he said, opening the door and stepping into the hallway.

  "Hold on. How'd Variel get my bag up here? We didn't meet him on the stairs."

  "There's a second stairway over there, for the servants." Somewhat distractedly, Carr pointed at the narrow stairwell.

  "Cool." Upon that single, mysterious word, Jesse darted down the flight of stairs.

  Carr hesitated before following him. He found that Jesse had paused at the low-ceilinged mezzanine level, at the top of the Death Wing. Jesse was poking his head into the small rooms there. "Servants' quarters, right?"

  "Yes. Our cook, and Millie the scullery girl, and Irene – she's my mother's maid – all live here."

  "The rooms are kind of tiny," Jesse commented.

  Feeling defensive, Carr said, "They were intended as rooms for the masters' children when they were first built. My father realizes that they're really too small for adults to live in – that's why he plans to convert the rooms on the ground level. The servants used to have a bit more room in the cellar, but my father thought—"

  "So let's visit the cellar." And with that, Jesse darted down the stairs again.

  Carr sighed. Keeping up with Jesse, he was beginning to see, was going to be like keeping up with a feral cat that insists on entwining itself round your legs and tripping you every time you take a step.

  Carr caught up with Jesse at the foot of the stairs; the young foreigner had already begun to prowl silently through the c
ellar, like an alley cat exploring new terrain. They moved together through the connected line of rooms. First came the old, abandoned servants' kitchen, its coal-blackened walls as dark as midnight. Then they passed the sleeping room, stripped of furniture even in the days when all the servants slept here. Last of all, they reached the work area, filled with rough-planed benches, shovels and rakes and other rusting tools, and a coal-chute leading outside so that the coal could be delivered directly to the servants who would take the coal upstairs in buckets. There was no fireplace in the servants' quarters, only the stove used to prepare the masters' meals.

  Carr saw Jesse taking all this in, his gaze travelling over the low, groined arches of the ceiling before settling on a piece of rusting metal on the wall. Jesse went over to inspect it.

  Carr cleared his throat. "My father uses the slave quarters as a wine cellar now."

  Jesse looked over his shoulder at Carr, raising his eyebrows. "'Slave quarters?"

  "The cellar is very old." Carr moved forward so that he could see more clearly what Jesse was standing next to. "Most of this house was built at the beginning of the nineteenth tri-century, but it was built on top of the old foundations, which date back tri-centuries – to the years when the servants hadn't yet been emancipated." He watched as Jesse lightly touched the rusty whipping ring on the wall. "My father felt this wasn't an appropriate place in which to house servants."

  "Yeah." Jesse stepped back from the ring. "Yeah, good call by your dad." He turned abruptly away from the ring. In the dim light from the cellar window, sweat glittered on his face. "Let's get out of here," he added, his voice wrung by some savage emotion. "This place gives me the creeps."

  o—o—o

  Perhaps in acknowledgment of the guest's political leanings, Carr's father had chosen to hold supper, not in the formal dining room, but in the family dining room. By the time they arrived there – having taken a tour of the mansion grounds – Sally had returned from town: she was stationed in the corner, breathing heavily as she pulled the rope that stirred the peacock-feathered ceiling fan, which hung over the dining table. Jesse took one look at this and demanded, "Do we really need that?"

  "Hmm?" Carr's father, who was making last-minute adjustments to his manuscript, looked up from the galley proofs, transformation-blue pencil in hand. "No . . . no, I don't suppose so. It's cool enough today that we don't really need the fan. That's enough, my girl."

  Sally let go of the rope, practically collapsing as she did so. Bat, his footman's uniform slightly askew, came forward to support her with his arm. Carr made a note to himself to remind his father that he should really remember to assign the House's heaviest duties to the male servants. His father, who lived under the delusion that the servants would inform him if they didn't like the tasks they were assigned, was inclined to forget such niceties.

  Carr's mother entered the room, all aflutter, her embroidered shirtwaist dress shining cream-colored in the late-afternoon sun. "Oh, dear, I'm sorry I'm late," she exclaimed. "I was helping Cook with the dessert."

  Carr managed not to wince. Carr's father said equably, "I'm so glad you can find the time to assist the servants. I dearly wish I could. Carr, do have a seat."

  Carr sat down, acutely conscious of Bat, who had not rushed forward to help him. When Carr's father had presented Bat as a gift to Carr on his seventeenth birthday, as a potential future valet for his only son, Carr had spent an entire week having disturbing dreams. . . . But the dreams had come to nothing. It soon became clear that, for Bat, service was merely a way to earn money so that he could keep from starving. The young footman was very unlike Variel, Carr's father's valet, who was dedicated to serving his master.

  Carr turned this dangerous thought from his mind as Jesse, rather than wait to be seated in a master's chair, pulled up a servants' stool to the table. Nobody besides Carr noticed; Carr's father's attention was focussed on Sally, who was pulling back a chair for her mastress.

  "Why, thank you!" As always, Carr's mother managed to sound surprised and grateful for the duties she herself had trained the servants to do. It was one of the reasons why, despite everything, the servants loved her. "That's so very kind of you. And so nicely done."

  Turning pink, Sally curtsied. "Thank you, ma'am."

  "Oh, please, no curtsies. And no 'ma'am' either. Benjamin," added Carr's mother, turning her head toward her husband as Sally, crestfallen at this reproach, retreated from the table, "it's really too bad that the servants have no suitable title by which to address me. Can't we create a female equivalent of 'Comrade Carruthers'?"

  "'Comradess,' perhaps?" Ignoring the plate of terrapin meat that Variel was offering him, Carr's father paused to consider the dilemma.

  "Food's at your elbow," Jesse pointed out. "Why do you need a special female title anyway? What's wrong with calling her Comrade Carruthers too? It would show that she's your equal."

  Carr's mother gave Jesse a delighted look. Smiling, Carr's father said, "Daisy, allow me to introduce our guest, Comrade Jesse. Carr has invited him to join us today."

  Carr could feel Jesse's eye on him. "I thought, Father, that we might invite him to stay with us for a few days." Seeing his father's incipient frown, he added, "There are so few Egalitarian homes in the Second Landstead for him to stay at, and it seems a shame for him to have to resort to a hotel."

  His father's expression cleared. The elder Carruthers valued his privacy, but he responded, as Carr had intended, to this clear reminder of his duties as the highest-ranked Egalitarian in the Second Landstead. "Of course," replied Carr's father. "Our home is yours, comrade, for as long as you need. Have you travelled far?"

  "A fair bit. —This food is good." Jesse directed this comment, not at Carr's mother, but at Variel and Bat and Sally, who had retreated to the serving table.

  "We have an excellent cook," said Carr's mother, always happy for an opportunity to compliment the servants. "I wish that I could prepare meals half as well as she can."

  "Nonsense, sweet one; your meals are always a delight to eat." Carr's father frowned as Sally came forward again to retrieve the napkin that Carr's mother had dislodged in her excitement. "My girl, what is that you're wearing?"

  Sally stared down at her dress, bewildered. Carr's mother looked surprised. "Is something wrong with the servants' uniforms?" she asked.

  "Her top button is undone. And her skirt is far too short. She looks like a woman of the streets." Carr's father glared at the young servant, who was now blinking back tears.

  "Oh, dear." Carr's mother grew flustered. "I hadn't noticed. . . . Sally, perhaps it would be best if you made a few adjustments to your uniform."

  "Yes, ma—" Sally quickly cut off the forbidden word. "Now?"

  "Yes, now." As the girl retreated, Carr's mother looked over at her husband, who continued to glare in the direction of the departing servant. "It's not her fault, is it, dear? I mean, she's very young."

  "Yeah, she is, isn't she?" Jesse's voice was lazily speculative. Carr winced, wishing that his guest was less perceptive.

  His father's expression turned to puzzlement. "Excuse me?"

  "Nothing," Jesse replied around a mouthful of hominy. "Look, why is it that you don't have the time to do household tasks alongside the other residents here?" He waved his hand toward Variel and Bat, who continued to stand by the serving table, silent and alert.

  Carr's father sighed. "Because, regrettably, my primary responsibility is to earn the money that keeps this House operating. We lost our tenant farmers during the financial troubles three tri-decades ago, and the Bay doesn't bring in as good a harvest as it used to. If it weren't for my work at the Bureau, this mansion would be in a state of disrepair."

  "The Bureau?" Jesse had gone suddenly as still as the servants. Carr bent his head, concentrating his gaze on the celery salad that he was pushing around the plate with his fork. Not merely perceptive but quick-witted. Jesse was going to prove . . . interesting.

  "The Bureau of Employment.
For lack of a better man, I am its director." His father's voice turned brisk. "We are officially a government bureau, but we have semi-independent powers. I do my best, of course, to see that the Bureau is run by principles that do not do violence to Egalitarian ideals. I like to think that I do a better job than my predecessor, who was inclined to pair servants with cruel masters. Even so . . . The fact is, I really have no head for running such a large organization."

  "Nonsense!" As always, Carr's mother was quick to defend her husband. "The trouble lies with the awful laws in this landstead."

  "Laws which I am bound to uphold until such time as I can persuade the High Master to change them . . . or until his heir takes power and begins to revitalize this landstead. —Thank you, Carr," he added as Carr passed him the last of the terrapin. Carr was aware of Variel's gaze upon him; he wondered, as always, whether Variel disliked his occasional tendency to take on the servants' work.

  His mother, who had no qualms whatsoever about interfering with the servants' daily routines, said brightly, "Here it is! The dessert I helped Cook make!"

  Sally, who had made a quick change into her older, more frayed uniform, was carefully wheeling in a cart which held the lopsided creation that Carr's mother had birthed. Carr's father, whose self-discipline never wavered when it came to his wife's food, said, "Marvellous. I hope you made enough for seconds."

  "Looks delicious." Jesse also seemed to have excellent self-discipline; he was beaming at the muddy mixture that Bat had just set before him.

  That left Carr to make up the loyal rear guard. He did so by taking a bite of the— He wasn't quite sure what it was, but he managed to swallow it without gagging. "Just what a fellow needs," he said, reaching hastily for water to wash down the vile remnants in his mouth. "Something solid to eat."

  "Solid?" His mother looked uneasy. "It's meant to be a light flan. Didn't I make it right?"

  "Of course you did, sweet one." Carr's father had already cleared his plate. "It's a shame that mastresses aren't eligible for the baking contests at the Second Landstead's fair. You'd win, hands down."

  Carr's mother looked relieved. Carr stared down at his still-full plate, wishing that he owned a dog, so that he could surreptitiously feed his mother's meals to it. Jesse, who was evidently made of quite stern material, held up his emptied plate. "More, please."

  "Thank you," Carr's father said to Jesse when his wife and Sally had withdrawn to allow the men to speak alone. "I know that my wife's desserts are somewhat unusual. Do you smoke?" He gestured to Variel to bring forward the cigars, pipes, and cigarettes that he reserved for guests. Neither he nor Carr smoked; they eschewed such luxuries, since tobacco remained the primary crop that servants must sweat over in the Second Landstead.

  "Nah, bad for the lungs," said Jesse, showing foreigners' usual penchant to appeal to science when making decisions. "And don't worry about the dessert. It's much better food than I've eaten in the past."

  Carr shot him a glance, wondering what dire circumstances his guest had entered into, that he should have eaten food so poisonous. Relaxing, Carr's father said, "We are privileged, we know, to live first-ranked lives. In a better world, there would be no different ranks for masters – no different ranks for any man. The titles of master and servant would be abolished; we would eat the same food together, sharing in the communal fortunes that bound us in ancient times, before the perfidious doctrine of mastery and slavery arose. . . . But I am lecturing to a fellow schoolmaster of Egalitarianism," he added, smiling. "Tell me, what were you hoping to accomplish during your visit to the Second Landstead?"

  "Rest and recreation, mainly." Jesse stretched his arms. "I've been working hard for a while now – needed a chance to vacation. I thought I'd check out the nightlife in the capital, for a start."

  "Solomons Island and Avondale aren't major cultural centers," Carr warned him.

  "Culture? Well, that's nice too, I suppose. I was thinking of entertainment along the lines of something more . . . elemental."

  Carr, who had been trying futilely to wash out the remaining taste of his mother's dessert, choked on the water. His father said, "Um. Ah. Yes. —Variel, you can clear up later. Take Bat with you." He waited until the servants had left and closed the door before he lowered his voice to say, "Well, yes, we have such establishments. I can give you a list if you like. Though we only have women at them, I should warn you."

  "Doesn't matter," said Jesse cheerfully. "Either way works for me."

  "Well, then." Carr's father paused to take the pen and leather-bound notebook that Carr had pulled out of his own jacket. "I haven't visited any such establishment myself, you understand. I can only recommend businesses that others have mentioned to me."

  "With a wife like that, who needs additional entertainment?" As he spoke, Jesse's eye went to Sally, who was passing the window, basket and pruning shear in hand, evidently on her way to fetch flowers for her mastress. "Thanks," he added as Carr's father handed him the short list. "I'll walk down to the capital tonight."

  "It's far too long a journey to walk," responded Carr's father. "I'll have one of my watermen take you there by boat . . . unless you prefer to be chauffeured by motorcar?"

  "Oh, it can't be too far to walk," said Jesse, staring up at the peacock feathers. "After all, your wife has Sally walk there."

  There was a long pause, which Carr contemplated breaking, but he was too interested to see how his father would reply.

  When his father answered, it was with an edge to his voice. "Are you criticizing a decision my wife has made?"

  "Do I look crazy?" Bringing his gaze down, Jesse grinned.

  Carr bit his lip to keep back the answer that leapt to his mind. His father, though, had apparently decided to give Jesse the benefit of the doubt. "No, of course not," he replied. "I would recommend the boat journey, if you're not prone to seasickness, as my son is." He gave Carr a quirk of a smile, and Carr emitted a breath of a laugh. In any other Bay-area family, his tendency to grow sick on anything except the largest ships would have qualified him for unending ridicule. But his father, having endured far worse ridicule himself, was always careful to refrain from mocking Carr over matters he could not help.

  Carr had tried to convince himself that this tolerance would extend farther than it currently did. He had never quite succeeded.

  "Boat sounds good," replied Jesse. "Maybe I can learn to sail while I'm here. Got to take advantage of the surroundings to learn new skills, you know."